


cherry stems

by orphan_account



Category: House M.D.
Genre: F/M, Late Night Conversations, Post-Coital, Suggestive Themes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-23
Updated: 2019-07-23
Packaged: 2020-07-11 19:44:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,310
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19933480
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: They're just two people in a kitchen at midnight.





	cherry stems

**Author's Note:**

> entirely self-indulgent, somewhat stream-of-consciousness. idk guys. hugh laurie is hot. forgive me.

She’s not entirely sure why this moment in particular sticks out in her mind, but it does. Years later when she looks back on the first few years of their relationship, Annie Walker will remember standing in her kitchen in a too-big t-shirt and panties at half past midnight, biting into a cherry, talking to Gregory House.

She always kept cherries in her house, picked them up from the produce market every time she went grocery shopping, the dark ones with pits in the middle. She had a method for eating cherries, scraping the flesh off of the pit in two bites and quickly depositing the pit into a paper towel that she held in her right hand. If she was watching TV while she picked at the bowl, which she often was, she could easily plow through fifteen or so of them before she realized how deep she’d gotten in.

But at the moment, Annie isn’t distractedly watching TV. She’s hyper-aware right now, almost to a painful degree. The TV isn’t on, Greg is rummaging through her fridge, and she can practically feel her skin prickle every time she thinks he might be looking at her. This isn’t something she’s used to, to put it lightly. Having someone in her apartment overnight.

(Saying that Greg was sleeping over that night makes it sound like an eighth grade slumber party, and she feels weird thinking of it like that, but on a technicality she supposes he is, in fact, sleeping over.)

“You buy dinosaur nuggets?”

She turns around, spits a cherry pit into her napkin, and frowns. “What’s wrong with dinosaur nuggets?”

“Nothing.” Greg turns around, and he’s holding the bright orange bag with the words Dino Buddies emblazoned over the top. “I happen to like dinosaur nuggets. How many do you want?”

“I’m not gonna have any,” she says, motioning to the cherries. “But help yourself.”

He slaps four of them on a plate and puts them in the microwave. She watches him do it, trying to take in every move he makes. Even the mundane act of microwaving frozen chicken nuggets was something fascinating, perhaps even because of the sheer normalcy of the act. The way everybody at Princeton-Plainsboro talked about Gregory House, you’d think he was some kind of mythical creature who only existed to show up and magically solve cases that left every other doctor’s head spinning. And yet here he was, standing in her kitchen, dressed in a pair of flannel pajama pants and a grey t-shirt, leaning on his cane and and heating up a plate of dinosaur nuggets.

It feels like the moment she takes her eyes off of him, he’s made his way behind her. He lets his cane lean against her kitchen counter for a moment, wrapping his arms around her waist and kissing the top of her head. He stays like that for a few seconds, his nose in her hair, and Annie feels herself relax. 

(That’s another thing nobody prepared her for when it came to Greg House — as much of a dickhead as he could be a lot of the time, he also had an uncanny ability to make you feel safe with barely a word.)

“Your hair is nice when you let it down,” he says.

She snorts, and if he finds that unromantic he doesn’t comment on it. “Keeps it out of my eyes.”

“What, so you’re saying I can’t convince you to drop the ponytail?” He’s using that simpering, sarcastic tone that she’s come to learn means he’s half-joking. “And I bet you’re also gonna say you’re not into the idea of going commando under your scrubs, huh?”

“You’re such a pig,” she says, but she says it affectionately, punctuates it with a suspiciously over-acted little eye roll and makes a show of removing herself from his arms. Greg places one hand over his heart as he grabs his cane again, and gives her puppy eyes, as if mourning the loss. She grins at him.

Annie takes two cherries from the bowl, passes one to Greg. The microwave beeps. He snaps the stem off of his and drops it into her waiting hand. “When I was in middle school, they used to say that any girl who could tie a cherry stem into a knot in her mouth was supposed to be a good kisser,” she says.

“Any girl who could do that was probably destined to be pretty good at something else too,” he replies, a remark which earns him a light smack on the arm.

“I had a few friends who could do it.” Annie leans her hip on the counter and finishes off her cherry, but keeps the stem in-between the thumb and pointer finger of her other hand. “I could never get the hang of it.”

“We’re at a bit of a sleepover now. Let’s see if you’ve gotten any better with a cherry stem since you left middle school. After all, I don’t wanna date someone who’s a bad kisser.” He raises one eyebrow at her, daring her to play along. It’s the sort of thing they’ve always had in common, these stupid little games that nobody else would humor either of them about.

She narrows her eyes, he narrows his. She can almost hear the old-fashioned whiny Western music playing somewhere in the distance, like he’s challenged her to a showdown. The microwave beeps a second time. She takes the cherry stem and pops it into her mouth.

It’s the sort of thing that she really hasn’t done since middle school, but did enough times that muscle memory quickly takes over. She moves her lips this way and that, tries to catch it between her teeth, flips her tongue in every direction physically possible, but even after almost thirty seconds of trying, the stem is no more closer to being tied in a knot than it was when it was in her hand. 

She spits it into the napkin, balls it up and tosses it into her garbage can at the corner of her kitchen, almost disappointed that she hadn’t been able to do right by her thirteen year old self. Greg is, at this point, openly laughing at her, clearly more amused by her single-minded determinedness to actually do it than anything else. She likes when she can get him laughing, because as far as she can tell it’s not something he does terribly often. She takes pride in her ability to do it, even if it’s not always on purpose.

“Yeah yeah, get your yucks out now,” she says, unable to help the twinge of bitterness that makes itself apparent in her voice. Would’ve been real funny if she’d been able to do it, weirdly cathartic at that. She remembers Jenna Montclair telling her that she’d never have a boyfriend if she couldn’t get the cherry stem thing down, and despite how stupid it was, it stung a bit in that uniquely far-off way that only childhood memories could. 

“I’m surprised,” Greg says with a grin that could only be described as ‘cheeky’. “All other evidence would point to a much more generous opinion of your skills with your mouth.”

She pulls him down for a kiss, then. It’s slow, easy. They’re not rushed, not stealing time in the corners of hallways, looking out to make sure nobody gets an eyeful. They’re in Annie’s apartment, the door is locked, and Annie’s barely got anything on. Greg’s hands are wandering, like they tend to do, and when he backs her against the counter, she giggles against his mouth and nips playfully at his lower lip.

The microwave beeps insistently again. They break apart.

“You’re probably gonna have to heat those up for another minute,” Annie says, still smiling.

“More time to practice with the cherry stems,” Greg replies.


End file.
